We spend a lazy morning chatting over breakfast before, Niki, Ami Hai and I start hitching south to Vientiane. We have to walk out of the town, which at mid-day peak with all our packs is a sweaty challenge but one that we rise too. We don't have to wait long before a cool-cat Lao guy dressed in cowboy gear pulls over to give us a lift. He owns a guest house in Laung Prabang and has just dropped off some of his guests in Vang Vieng, luckily he decides to help us...

Vang Vieng was previously the party capital of Laos. Bars lining the Mekong would cater to fun filled tourists tubing down the river, getting wasted and generally being western in all their weird ways - until too many people died drowning in the river and the government clamped down. Most of the bars were closed down not too long before we arrive. We were told by some not to even bother stopping in Vang Vieng but I'm glad we did. With most of the bars closed down...